Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free
The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House
Here is the thing about Donald Trump’s neofascism, ethnonationalism and the threat he poses to democracy: however you label his prejudices, US voters who do not have an opinion on this subject never will. Or at least not until it is too late.
Perhaps this is because this critical but tiny share of undecided voters think Trump is all bark and no bite. Maybe they are betting he would be fascistic to others, just not towards them. Possibly they are so bored of politics they have no clue what Trump has been saying.
Whichever it is, Kamala Harris should think twice before basing her closing pitch on Trump’s strongman menace.
Yet that is what her campaign was planning. Some of this is because Harris is strong and fluent on Trump’s threat to the republic. On two of the issues that most bother US voters — the economy and immigration — she is either unsure of herself, or hamstrung by her alleged poor record.
Both characterisations might be unfair. But the way in which Harris talks about those subjects leaves many voters wondering what she really thinks. “So what?” say people in Harris’s orbit. “When the US republic is on the line, the quality of her economic narrative should not matter.”
The merit of that case is unarguable. Given the retributive threat that Trump poses, which he is ratcheting up as election day nears, nothing else matters. Even were Harris an empty vessel, which is obviously not the case, voting against Trump would be a no-brainer.
The problem is that those who agree with that line do not amount to a clear majority. The rest are either true believers or are unfazed by the spectre of Trump deporting millions, targeting political enemies and replacing civil servants with loyalists (to cite a few of his vows).
A week before polling day, it is not a strategy to say that voters should be more worried than they are about US democracy; to the doubters that might sound like moral disapproval, which only annoys them more. Liberal confusion between what is and what ought to be was on display in reaction to the Washington Post’s announcement last week that it would not endorse a presidential candidate this election. Most of the anger was directed at the newspaper, which has done copious investigative reporting into Trump. Yet its significance lay in the fact that a US corporate titan, Jeff Bezos — owner both of Amazon and what Trump calls the “Bezos Washington Post” — was caving to Trump in advance. Journalists played no role in his decision.
Harris would do better to copy the anti-smoking rule book — no matter how many gruesome warnings you make about lung cancer, they rarely cause people to give up. Human psychology is likelier to be swayed by visions of the good life that awaits them.
For both negative and positive appeals, the less abstraction the better. It is one thing to hear that Trump will ignore the constitution. It is another to be told he has promised big donors the licence to trample on employee protections, or to give Elon Musk the power to cut federal spending by a third.
The same applies to abortion rights. Talk of restoring Roe vs Wade rights is fair enough. But it is more powerful to spell out the reproductive options that are in jeopardy.
The ideal finale to Harris’s campaign would have been another debate with Trump. The last one often occurs a week or so before voting day. Given how badly the first went, it is unsurprising that Trump would not risk another.
Because of the chances they would be beaten up, getting campaign staff to dress up as chickens and taunt Trump into agreeing to a second debate would have been rash. Bill Clinton did use that tactic to shame George HW Bush into a debate in 1992. But the times are harsher. Which means that Harris’s finest moment — and her biggest audience — are now seven weeks behind her.
What might Harris do to clinch undecided voters in the time that remains? US history shows that big surprises often occur in the final days. It is almost inconceivable that any damaging news about Trump would change people’s minds about him. Almost everyone knows the nature of his character and what he says he will do.
To those in doubt about either, Trump is constantly on people’s screens reminding them of both — and in ever more lurid terms. In that respect, Trump is doing Harris’s job for her. The best that Harris can do is to embrace pragmatism. Both the following observations are true: the US republic is in danger; and a startling share of America is unbothered.
